The Struggle for LGBT Rights in Mainland China

Summer Xiu is currently a law student at Shanghai International Studies University. Passionate about LGBT causes, she has been working with LGBT non-profit organizations and leading national campaigns in support of LGBT students’ rights in mainland China since 2014. She served as the President of Rainbow Aliens, the only underground queer student organization in Jiangxi, and co-founded Love and Voice, an LGBT organization in the city of Nanchang, where she went to college. She has also been involved in a lawsuit demanding that the Ministry of Education remove homophobic language from Chinese textbooks. She will talk about her own experiences as an activist as well as the broader context of LGBT rights in China today.